Learning to See: Literature, Moral Perception and Early Confucian Virtue Ethics

In the Analects, Confucius compares someone who has not adequately studied the classic Book of Odes to a person standing with their face to a wall—unable to see, unable to act. This talk unpacks scattered and vague references in the Analects to construct a coherent account of how the Odes was used in early Confucianism as a tool for virtue ethical self-cultivation, as well as how the Analects itself, as a piece of literature, was meant to help train moral-perceptual expertise. It will be argued that early Confucians anticipated modern virtue ethical theorists in putting learning to see as itself the most fundamental of moral problems, a position that is supported by contemporary work on cognition and perception. 

Edward Slingerland is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Distinguished University Scholar and Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, where he also holds appointments in the Departments of Psychology and Asian Studies and directs the Database of Religious History (DRH). 

Free and open to the public.